NEWS GROUP??

DEFINITION…

A newsgroup is a virtual discussion forum or electronic bulletin board system that is found on Usenet. Today, there are hundreds upon hundreds of newsgroups on literally every subject imaginable, from politics to poverty, business to boxing, hobbies to health care and much more.

FUNCTION…

Each newsgroup is organized around a single subject, and provides a convenient forum for users to communicate with other people from all over the world who share their interest in that particular subject. Every newsgroup has a collection of messages that is written to a central website on the Internet and then broadcast across the World Wide Web via Usenet. Users are free to post followup messages on existing posts, respond to previous posts, or create new newsgroups for other users to post on.


TYPES…

Newsgroups are categorized into separate and distinct hierarchies based on their respective subjects. The first few letters of a newsgroup name usually indicates its major subject category and sub-categories are represented by the subtopic name. For example, the subject heading for recreation will be "rec.", while the subject heading for science will be "sci.". The same principle can be applied to these categories: social group (soc.), computers (com.), and Alternative (alt.).


BENEFITS…

Unlike a website, the content on Usenet does not exist in one single location, that can be located via the website's URL. Instead, copies of Usenet content are located all over the Internet on various participating sites, with each site maintaining a copy on the specific subject area of its choosing. A key benefit of the worldwide distribution of Usenet content is that the newsgroup members can easily and conveniently access a copy that is relatively close to them, which makes the process much faster because it bypasses congested Internet networks.


WARNING…

If you are new to the world of newsgroups, it is recommended that you learn basic netiquette, or Internet etiquette. It is essential that you be courteous when posting messages and replies. Many newsgroups designate an individual to serve as a moderator, who has the power to allow or remove certain postings that are considered inappropriate.